Category: Media Coverage

Welcome to 2017! We’re just about a year away from the next Winter Olympics, which means our case of Olympic Fever–which had ebbed quite a bit, as can be the case with event fevers–is starting to make a reappearance. This means we’re back in action here on TheFeverr and will be posting more frequently.

The IOC probably would wonder why our fever ever subsided–after all, shouldn’t everyone be concerned with the Olympics 24/7/365? I’m not sure even an Olympic athlete can do that, to be honest, but the IOC is going to try to capture more of our eyeball time anyway. To do so, it’s launched the Olympic Channel, which is a mix of features, replays and original programming that’s available online and via app and–it’s hoping–partnerships with the networks to feature it on terrestrial television

Currently, the features are a bunch of Rio Replays of various sport highlights, as well as highlights from Rio, Sochi, London, Vancouver, Beijing, and the Youth Olympic Games. The IOC has partnered with different sporting organizations to show their major events. Video news rounds out the main categories.

The channel actually has a lot of original content, so from time to time we’ll look at some of its shows and let you know if they’re worth checking out, or if you should stick to the clip highlights to get your Olympic fix.

In this show, chefs help Olympic athletes transform their eating habits from boring to gourmet. I watched two episodes, thinking we’d learn about Olympian nutrition and what athletes in different sports eat on a regular basis. The show does show that a little bit–it talks about how the body needs to perform to be successful in the sport being featured, but it’s really a cooking show where a big time chef takes one staple meal in the athlete’s repertoire and shows them how to cook something that’s similar but 20 times fancier. Of course, the new meal looks and tastes a lot better, and the athlete is totally impressed with what they could be doing in their kitchens. The thing is that you can see see they’re never really going to try cooking like that on a regular basis because those meals usually take a lot of time to prepare, which can cut into the rest of life (and for a small sport, that likely includes having a job outside of training).

The show’s kind of interesting, but ultimately disappointing because I was expecting more education about athletic nutrition and I got a highly chopped up cooking show that barely showed me how to make a specific recipe.

My rating: OO (two rings out of five)

I probably wouldn’t watch the rest of it unless I was really hurting for content (and who’s hurting for content these days?), and that’s saying something, considering that I like cooking shows.

This show takes “fitness-minded social influencers” who poo-poo some Olympians’ fitness regimes and sees if they can actually train like an Olympian. Hey, guess what? In the two episodes I saw (fencing and curling), the influencers were blown away by the difficulty of the workouts and gained a new-found respect for the Olympians and their sports. Shocking!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that every episode is going to have the same outcome, and that’s pretty lame. However, it is pretty cool to get a glimpse into the skills needed for different sports and see a little bit of the workouts necessary to build those skills. I say “a little bit” because these shows are heavy on the stylistic editing that gets in the way of laying down a lot of facts. This means you can’t get a full sense of what a day is like, but you do see some really cool exercises to try and use in your own workouts.

My rating: OOOO (four rings out of five)

I do hope to catch more episodes of this show because it’s kind of helpful in learning the exercises that help you develop certain skills like balance and quick reflexes. Even though the gimmick of the influencer gaining mad respect gets tired quickly, it’s fun to see someone who’s in shape try a routine that’s out of their comfort zone and see how taxing it is.

Ryan Seacrest is interviewing Matthew McConaughey. Let’s not get into why. I don’t know. I’m late to this party (fast forwarded through some Equestrian eventing and Table Tennis). BUT. McConaughey’s given a good reason for Tennis to be in the Games. He talked about how women’s rugby players make $20,000 a year and have to have odd jobs to make ends meet. Then he talked to tennis player Novak Djokovic, who went out early in the competition, but said he loves the Olympics because it’s the only event that reminds every athlete why they love the game, why they wanted to play the game in the first place. There’s no sponsors, management or money (and Djokovic knows money–he’s the first tennis player to make over $100 million in his career), but it’s the reminder of the love of the game.

That might be the perfect place to end tonight’s coverage.

12:15 AM EDT – Archery

I had archery on the small screen earlier today, so I’ve gotten to see more than just the Americans. Archery’s become one of my favorite sports to watch. I’ve tried it too (the Boy has actually taken it up as a hobby)–lack of time keeps me from pursuing it more, along with the fact that I’m cross-eye dominant, and I currently don’t have the patience to develop my weaker side.

Enough about me. Archery is fun because there’s an action, then a second of suspense while the arrow’s in the air, then joy or disbelief over the result. A perfect 10 gets a great shout from the venue announcer. The crowds–although not complying with Rio 2016 full seat policy–are into it, particularly when a Brazilian’s on the line. And in a move that seems pretty bizarre to me, though they are playing in the Sambódromo, samba dancers line the doorway where the archers come out. How to make archery festive? Samba dancers. Hell, let’s have all the archers learn samba while we’re at it!

At any rate, this is the men’s individual final, and Brady Ellison shot an unbelievable perfect set (three 10s) in the round of 32. Unfortunately, that’s meant he had to face fellow teammate Jake Kaminsky in the round of 16. Where he got another perfect set and managed to win the match.

Hey! Para-archer Zahra Nemati from Iran is in this Games, having qualified in her own right. It’s been a while since a para athlete has made the archery competition, and it’s really cool to see. She lost her first round match, 6 set points to 2, but hey, the individual sets were really close (sometimes one point difference) and being in a wheelchair robs her of the stability that two legs provides. Well done!

11:50 PM EDT – Gymnastics

“Some of the scores today have really taken a long time, as if the US hasn’t done a lot of waiting already.” – Al Trautwig, on waiting for Aly Raisman’s floor exercise score

I had to rewind this one and listen to it again. Look, I know announcing is difficult, and when you’ve got dead air to fill (and you’ve pretty much told every Simone Biles/Aly Raisman/Gabby Douglas/Fierce Five story), you know you’ve got to say something, anything, just to make sure the audience is engaged. But making the US look like more entitled jerks might not be the best thing. Just sayin’.

10:54 PM EDT- Swimming

Hey, do you think that NBC swimming commentators got a talking to about how much they featured Katinka Hosszu’s husband? She picked up another gold medal tonight, and they hardly showed him at all. Interesting. Media outlets everywhere are learning quite a bit about sexism these Games, as they’re being battered with how they talk about female competitors.

Oh, Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps won more gold medals tonight. I think Phelps is getting one cup per medal.

9:56 PM EDT

After a lovely dinner out, it’s time to catch up on some of the competition. Today I caught a little bit of the Equestrian eventing competition, some archery and some fencing. Now I’m catching up on the evening recap coverage.

We can get into how NBC’s nightly coverage is highly US-centric and doesn’t really show a ton of an event, and the case of something like team gymnastics, doesn’t really show much of other countries’ performances, which makes it difficult to assess just how the US is doing against the competition. It was weird to have watched the men’s team competition and then wake up to hear about Ukraine’s wacky strategy. And maybe it’s because I’m trying to watch too quickly, but I missed chalk talk too.

I can’t really fault NBC for trying to do its best in giving a summary of everything that happened during the day, plus show you a decent amount of actual competition. But I could do with one less Simone Biles/Michael Phelps/Kerri Walsh-Jennings story per day (or hour) and more actual sports.

Athletes aren’t going to Rio for sh*ts and giggles (well, they might end up with the sh*ts, seeing as how the water quality is still a big topic, but still). No, they’re going to win some hardware.

That means those of us at home are playing “O, Who Will Win?”, the amazing Olympic Medal Prediction game that pits economists, sports information groups, sportswriters, academics and UOPs (Unidentified Olympic Predictors) against each other to prove that their prediction model is the best.

Who are among the competitors this year?

Goldman Sachs. The world class investment banker has a heavy duty report that ranks both gold and total medals, plus looks at different sports and the effect on the host country’s economy. Their top five golds? US, China, UK, Russia, and South Korea. Swap out Germany for South Korea and you’ll have their top five total winners.

Gracenote Sports. This provider of music, video and sports data has a Virtual Medal Table (VMT) where they predict the top 10 countries by total, and they break it down by type of medal. For non-subscribers, they have more fun predictions in a press release, including some individual athletes’ performance.

Luciano Barra. Barra is a former member of the Italian Olympic Committee who makes regular predictions and uses World Championships in his calculations.

Olympic Medals Predictions. Predictions, yet claimed by no one. Who’s the mysterious calculator behind this website? We don’t know, but we’re wondering how their picks pan out. Top five for gold are US, China, Russia, UK and France. Swap France for Germany and you’ve got OMP’s top five total.

Sports Illustrated. SI’s Brian Cazeneuve has made predictions for every event. We’ll track that too, but his overall medal count prediction ranks the US, China, Russia, UK and Australia as the top five overall winners.

We here at The Feverr are going to track the Predictors and see how well they fare at this year’s edition of OW3. We’ll be tracking everything here so that you can follow along (and will be updating it throughout the Games). Who will bring home the gold in the OW3? We can’t wait to find out!

I was checking out the on demand section of my cable TV the other day and noticed a whole “Road to Rio” section that NBC’s put together to get people pumped about the games. Some of it’s cheesy, some of it’s tearjerky, but there are some really interesting factoids and things that might inspire you.

Cheesy:

Olympians’ special talents (or lack thereof): We hear some singing, instrument playing and some “think they can sing better than they sound here.” We also see failed tricks and learn that gymnast Aly Raisman can’t snap her fingers or do any tongue-curling tricks.

Tearjerky:

Anything involving the parents is going to bring on the tears. It’s enough to make you wish that Kleenex was still an Olympic sponsor.

Cool factoid:

Shooters aim at the front of the clay for trap/skeet shooting.

Possible inspiration:

There’s a segment about workouts. A fair amount of it involves athletes who puke mid-workout but then have to keep going because they’re not done. Put that image aside, and you hear just how hard these athletes work to get their bodies into ultimate physical condition. It might inspire you–it certainly inspired me to add another set onto my weightlifting workout right then and there, and I feel a hell of a lot better for doing it.

On Verizon, at least, there’s a longer program which is cut into smaller segments, and you can choose what to watch. Just prepare yourself for the rather long reminder to watch the Olympics at the end of each segment.

It’s been a while–you might have thought we’d gotten so sick with The Feverr that we couldn’t post, but no, we had to take a road trip across half the United States and got a little bit behind. But we’re back now and will be beefing up the content until the big day. We’ll finish up our sports synopses soon, and with less than 30 days to go, it’s time to start planning your Opening Ceremonies parties, so we’re also working on tips and tricks to have your own gold medal winning celebration.

In the meantime, we’ve noticed that Olympic coverage is starting to come out on the magazine stands, so we’re awash in print-filled excitement. What’s on the American newsstands in July?

Marie Claire: This story’s actually from the fashion mag’s June issue, in which five Olympic hopefuls talk about their training, eating and beauty regimens. Luckily, all five “hopefuls”–Allyson Felix (athletics), Gwen Jorgensen (triathlon), Alise Post (BMX), Simone Manuel (swimming) and Morghan King (weightlifting)–are actually going to Rio.

Popular Mechanics: This title’s July/August issue is its Olympic Innovation Issue! with coverman Ryan Lochte. Articles include a feature on track star Justin Gatlin’s biomechanics training and Olympians’ gear over the years. A side reason to pick up this issue: There’s an article on great American factory tours (we love ourselves a good factory tour!).

Scientific American Mind: This title’s July/August issue has an article about psychological and physical traits that separate Olympians from the rest of us. Note: Olympians aren’t necessarily superhumans–you have to have the right mindset, work hard and have good coaching. You’ll have to read the article–and its sidebar about overtraining to learn more. There’s also a follow-up article about coaching like an Olympian–it takes skill to motivate athletes.

Self: July/August is Self’s Olympics issue. Three-time Olympian and highly decorated swimmer Natalie Coughlin is the cover model, although it turned out that Rio 2016 wasn’t in the cards for her, as the U.S. Swimming Trials did not go as planned. Still, this issue is chock-full of Olympic inspiration, including nail art, Olympic-inspired athletic wear, motivation, Olympian workouts and a column on Paralympian triathlete Melissa Stockwell. And a fashion shoot featuring a model and a fencer. For percentage of issue coverage, this one gives you the best bang for your buck.

Where’s the torch?

Curitiba, capital of Paraná. It’s southwest of Rio, near the Atlantic Ocean.